Silent Swords
by paynesgrey
Summary: Behind the closed doors of the fencing arena are Juri and Miki, together in the midst of practice. Yet, as hours go by, Kozue and Shiori wait for them, wondering if what they are really DOING there. Without sight, all is left is to hear muffled sounds.


**AN: This is an Utena one-shot I wrote for a contest. I hope you like it. The theme was "bringing two characters together that would normally have nothing in common." The main pairing here is Miki/Juri implied. The characters to be brought together are Shiori and Kozue.**

**Thanks for reading!**

Silent Swords

Shiori softly approached the building with the unholy desire to see Juri. Whether her animalistic instinct intended to torment her or act civil to her, she had not foreseen. Yet, her heart and body seemed drawn to the fencing arena this evening for reasons she could not comprehend. Strangely enough, she gave into the call of her senses.

She almost let a twisted smile slip as she reveled in the tortured look on Juri's face every time she had come in contact with her. As she walked around the building to the entrance, she was taken aback at another girl waiting at the door.

The blue haired girl leaned against the door with her eyes closed and arms crossed. Shiori furrowed her brow in exasperation. This girl was blocking the way inside the fencing arena. Shiori approached her, and she held out a hand to grab the handle of the large towering door.

"It's locked," the girl said simply with coldness, her eyes still closed. "Don't bother."

Shiori growled inwardly at the girl's attitude.

"But I have to see Juri. Did you knock on the door?" Shiori seethed, her tone insinuating that the girl was just plain stupid.

"Of course, but they won't hear you," Kozue said sighing.

"They?" Shiori asked readily. Kozue then turned to stare at her with intense topaz eyes.

"My brother and the fencing captain," Kozue replied harshly. She seemed to take this knowledge with much discomfort. Her tone and the new information made Shiori uncannily curious. "They've been in there for hours."

"Fencing?" Shiori asked again. She felt like a dumb child asking all these questions of the girl who just calmly swam in her own ebbing irritation.

Kozue shrugged. "Probably."

"What do you mean 'probably?'?" Shiori snapped at her. She clenched her fists and stormed toward a window. She looked inside with futile results. The thick stone gray curtains draped over the window from the inside like a towering wall, daring prying eyes and sunlight to run through it. Shiori scrunched her face in frustration at the window.

'What was she doing in there for so long? How long did a stupid fencing lesson take, anyway?' She pounded her fist against the wall of the building. Kozue turned her attentions away from her as if she was bored again.

Suddenly, Shiori turned her head and rested her ear flush against the window. She placed her other hand over her other ear, trying to capture as much sound as possible from the other side of the window.

"Hold on," she said, and Kozue made a motion to be interested in her. She stared at the girl trying to hear through the window, not really knowing whether to laugh at the maroon haired girl or humor her intentions. "I hear something …"

"What do you hear? Swords clashing? Metal on metal?" Kozue asked expectantly. She had fully hoped that her brother was locked in that prison doing what he should be doing, engaging in innocent swordplay with the girl fencer. However, deep within her core, she had guessed that something else was occurring instead, something that she did not want her brother to be doing.

Shiori shook her head. "I don't hear swords clashing at all, and I know what they sound like more than anyone." A memory of her watching Juri fight with Ruka zapped in front of her eyes, and then it quickly disappeared. "No, I hear voices."

"Voices? Like talking?" Kozue asked with whole interest now.

"No…give me a second." Shiori continued to keep her ears flush against the window. Silence seemed to chew the air between them. The expression on Shiori's face took many shapes as she continued to decipher the strange erratic noises within the building.

"There is rustling, like something pushed around on the floor… and laughing," she added suddenly choking the weighted silence.

Kozue jerked forward to Shiori's position as she saw the girl's face suddenly pale and then her eyes widen.

"What? What is IT?"

Kozue pushed the girl slightly aside to have listening room on the large window.

And when Kozue's ears finally heard this revelation, her hopes and reserves fell in conjunction with Shiori's disappointment.

The two girls leaned their head against the window, their eyes clouding over with shared pain. Tears ebbed on the sides of their eyes, but their anger prevented them to fall to such a silly thing. In an unexpected move, Kozue placed a shaky hand over Shiori's. The warm feeling from their hands traveled through their bodies and moved their eyes to meet.

They nodded as they understood each other, and from now on, their jobs would be much more difficult as their important people had found happiness without them. Their emotional control over them was losing its luster.

But they knew they just couldn't give up. Their roles had been the same. They were the bloody thorn that pierced the sides of their beloved ones, driving downward into their bodies, keeping them from fully reaching out to their own revolution.

Kozue's eyes closed shut tightly, and Shiori weakly laughed as the last constructive sound was heard from within the enclosed garden of newness.

She whispered, her voice defining the shared longing and betrayal they both now felt.

"Climax."

END


End file.
